CASTRO GAINS CITED AS REASON FOR INVASION TRY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000200100185-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 185
• Publication Date: January 1, 1962
• Content Type: NSPR

STATINTL
App M e '*For ieai& 1999/09/16: CIA-RL'0-000 i$RO0020010018
tastro Gains Cited as
Reason .for invasion Try
Ex-Intelligence- Chief Dulles Ded,lares' j r.
Events Dictated Move Short of intervention'
WASH?INOTON (A '. Th e would pra ra fy have to have
nation's former in e nce `been m a d e sometime be-
chief indicated Sunday that tween, say, November end
Premier :Castro's: growing April."
military strength set t hi e i Asked whether the April
timetable for last spring's Pvasipn..was the last, chance
abortive effort to over^thrcW to overthrow Castro without
direct U
S
intervention Dul
.
-
.
Allen W. Dulles, who re-les replied:
tired a few weeks ago as di- , rarntnr of the Cont.rai iMai "W611, ?Iwouldn't go quite
ligence Agency,, .,said any
move a g a i n s t Communist
Castro, . short of full - scale
U.S. military". intervention;
had to be made- between No-
vember, 1960, and April,
1961.
Historical View
Appearing on a'recorded
radio and- TV pro" grarit,(NBC
-Meet the Press), Dulles
that'fat, .but I`would go well
along the line. We knew .
that 'tlie Cuban pilots were
being trainqd in Czechaslo:1
vakia. We knew they were
going to have.' 'Very shortly
available uinder,Cuban direc-
tion ` MIGs in 'considerable,
numbers and I am inclined
to think. as I said before.
that it a move was to Deli
made short of intervention,
f think the'historians
of the future., will probably
say that if any 'move was to
be made to get ridol'com-
munism in Cuba, short of ac-
tual military intervention
- -ith all the power of the
probably this Was the area
of time when it had to be
made. About November to
April."
Dulles d.enied that the
failure of the invasion was
an intelligence failure. .
hardware that ap 1bared that
was a surprise to us," he said
but he conceded that "some
of. the, material.wps a little
better handled than we ex-
pected."
,.'There is quite a popular
America~ have now broken
diplomatic relations w i t h
Cuba and I think therefore
the impact of Castroism has
decreased in many L a t i n
American countries over the
last six months because of
misapprehension;" D u 1 1 e sl their u iderstanding of what
continued, "that it was feldhastaken place in Cuba and
there ;would be a spontane- their apprehension of what
mi take place in their
oua uprising. We have never owri countries."
,contemplated that. In the
days of the war I worked al
great, deal, with the . French
underground. The `last thing
we wanted was spontaneous'
upris#rtgs, to be slaughtered
by tl e Nazi troops. In the
same way we were not look-
ing for 'spontaneous upris-
ing, but" for other develop-
ti4ents.
He :_aid,. not elaborate on
what, these other develop-
ments might have been.
.`Latins Alerted'
In reply to a question on
whether le believed Castro's
influence; in. Latin America
was declining, Dulles de-'
Glared:
"I think that Latin Amer-
ica is far more' alerted to the
d a n g,e r of Castroism and i
communism as a danger toj
their systems 'than they]
were, let's say, a, year ago,- or
last April
"Many countries in Latin
Approved For Release 1999/09/16 : CIA-RDP70-00058R000200100185-4